You People Piss Me Off!

That’s right, you.

You know who you are. You’re the person who either can’t read, or understand pictures, or you simply think the rules don’t apply to you.

Sensitive ecosystem, that’s for suckers.

You’re the fisherman who has plenty of energy to carry your bait container down to the stream.

Probably a six pack too.

Yet the exertion required to carry it was too much for you to bear. Leaving you so drained you were unable to carry the empty container out with you. I know, I know, lifting the colossal weight of the empty container, then carrying it the thirty yards back to your car so you could dispose of it properly was obviously far too daunting a task for you to undertake.

Don’t think I wasn’t tempted to really go off on a rant. I don’t consider myself a tree hugger type, but the last thing I want to see when I’m out in the woods is the trash people leave behind. Or in the case of the first photo, the footsteps of people who completely ignored the signs to keep off the dunes. And while the photo shows only one, both sides of the path through the dunes I was on was lined with them. No way in hell someone could legitimately say they didn’t see them.

I agree with everything in your post but am curious about your comment “I don’t consider myself a tree hugger.” I’ve been reading your posts here & there for a while and it seems that you very much value a clean and healthy environment. 🙂

Yes I do indeed value the environment. I think I tend to shy away from calling myself a tree hugger because of the anti hunting message that so often comes along with it. I am far from anti hunting. I spent a major part of my life as a hunter. In fact if I hadn’t picked up a camera I probably still would be. It was the realization that I got the same satisfaction from a day in the field with my camera as I did a day carrying a shotgun and working with a good bird dog that caused me to decide to give it up and pursue photography more intensely.

I hear you! It bothers me too to see junk around God’s creation. God gave us a beautiful earth and beautiful scenery and we have to look at other inconsiderate people’s garbage–grow up people and throw your own trash away where it belongs! Quit being so lazy and take your trash with you and throw it away yourself. Thank you Jeff for posting. I love your nature pictures. You are a wonderful photographer! God bless,Susan

Agreed! I almost always carry a few plastic bags with me when I’m out hiking just for the trash I find. Fortunately on real hiking trails the average person is much more respectful. It’s places like the one near the stream where the road is a very short walk that sees the most trash.

I guess one could say it’s fortunate that these lazy dirtbags are just that, lazy. And as soon as you get a little ways from the road the trash disappears.

Fortunately, as I mention in another reply, in the more remote places where you and I travel I don’t see this. Sure I might come across a small piece of granola bar wrapper, most likely dropped by accident. It’s closer to roads, where the access is easy that the problem is the worst.

Yes, I read that. Still its laziness and careless. We ran into folks yearly that didnt why we carried dirty diapers back with us. Truly a strange conversation but makes me winder what they do with trash.

sorry, my A-type personality is hitting. Plus, I need a lesson with my iPhone 6 and my big thumbs 🙂 That’s ..Yes, I read that. Still its laziness and careless. We ran into folks yearly that didn’t understand why we carried dirty diapers back with us. Truly a strange conversation but makes me wonder what they do with trash. I know you knew what I meant… just A-type… forgive me 😛

Not surprised. It’s only likely to get worse in those sand dunes if the snowy owls show up in the numbers we’ve been seeing past few winters. Then not only do people willfully disregard the signs, they put more stress on an already stressed wild animal. All so they can get the shot.

The stories I was hearing about how some of the people were acting to get closer to the birds last year kept me away all together for fear I might not be able to stop myself from planting my boot firmly in someone’s ass!

We are having similar problems here, though not so much with people, but with the animals they say they want and then disregard. Cats are the single biggest threat to our wildlife, they kill so many native birds and have helped make quite a few extinct.

There are signs up around here that dogs much be on leads in the parkland because of the birds and wildlife, but so many people just let their dogs roam free, so irresponsible, too much me. We have to care for our environment, we are only guardians, and we have to make sure that all things are protected. Who knows what potential problems we could end up with if we destroy too much of the wildlife.
Oh dear, I think I am ranting now, sorry.

Rant away, Leanne, rant away! If more of us don’t speak up, and confront people when we see them doing something irresponsible or breaking the rules, it’s only going to get worse. We as human beings are often so short sighted that we don’t see a problem until it’s too late to do anything about it.

I took the photo of the bait container specifically for a post like this. It’s been sitting on my computer for over a year, just waiting. Seeing the footprints in the sand dunes last weekend just pushed me over the edge and I had to vent. normally I would have just picked it up and made the shot. Which I did after getting the one with it in it.

oh I totally am with you on this rant!!! oh I wish I was there when they throw their trash behind them or see them enter those forbidden areas to I could tell one of them what I think of them all… oh you did it so well and with pictures so beautiful, it goes straight to the point. It’s so little to do, to take back one’s trash, I’ll never get why they trow it away there.

as the picture says “the trash you leave on the trail can’t talk but it says a lot about you.”

Well said Jeff! We have the same problem here. Ducks getting tied up in fishing lines, drowning because of it, the tourists that come down on the weekends and dumping their rubbish everywhere and so do most of the locals. In my eyes they are the trash and I don’t have good feelings about them either.

So well said! I will never understand the laziness and lack of respect some people have. I bet those are the same people who complain about the rules/laws there are to protect the environment too. Irony at its best I guess. Oh wait, that means they would have to acknowledge the rules/laws in the first place….never mind.

I have a rant coming on this same issue – in Glacier and Canada this summer I spent waaaay too much time pointing out signs telling people to stay on the path and not trample the plants. (A park ranger at Glacier actually thanked me.) If people have so little concern for the environment around them, they should just stay home! Thanks for the rant.

I have often wondered about the consciousness of people who leave trash behind – the guy who dumped a car battery near one of our pristine streams, just a few steps outside a trash dumpster; the other guy(s) who dump their large tires down a wooded hillside, the others who throw their empty beer bottles out of their car to land wherever they may, the women who leave their used sanitary napkins to rot away over the next few decades or their baby’s soiled diapers (even more plastic) – all alongside a beautiful river. I went to the town dump recently and spent time carefully separating my recycles into the brown, clear, and green glass containers, the tin from the aluminum, the paper and cardboard – you know, the usual stuff we are responsible for. some guy in his pick-up truck just threw everything into the trash, couldn’t care less about the large pieces of cardboard, the beer bottles…it’s just too much trouble to walk a few steps and put things where they belong. But he did have time to carry on a meaningless conversation with another person at the dump… Just what does it take to wake people up to the fact that they are responsible for their trash and their actions? Let’s not even begin to get more complicated like buying stuff to avoid mounds of plastic packaging, avoiding buying useless stuff altogether, re-using materials….

I’m right with you Jeff! One of the things that makes my blood boil is when a small stretch of beach is cordoned off for NESTING Piping Plovers and people (mostly locals) become so indignant about being told what they can and can’t do on…THEIR beaches.

Great Post Jeff!! I see a lot of the same thing in the places we go. There is nothing worse than visiting a pristine environment and finding evidence of an unthinking or totally inconsiderate human being leaving their “signature” behind.